Despite that my father grew up a mile west of Yankee Stadium, and was a Yankee fan (much to my grandfather’s chagrin, I’m sure; my grandfather grew up in Brooklyn and HATED the Yankees, naturally), my father’s favorite baseball player of all time was not Joe DiMaggio, but his brother Dominic.
When my Dad played softball at Macombs Dam Park as a teenager, (which was next to the old location of Yankee Stadium, and Steinbrenner and Bloomberg callously plowed over to make room for the “new” Yankee Stadium) he always played center field in the same manner that his hero Dominick DiMaggio did; sideways. Nobody ever talks about this, and I’ve never seen a picture of it, but Dom DiMaggio always stood sideways in center field, with his left shoulder facing home plate and his body facing the left field stands) so that he was prepared to get a better jump on a fly ball.

I find it interesting that you decided to change him into a hockey player.

lollzers @ coalblack…but seriously Kortas this was playful ( a little more so than your standard) and I really dig it from concept to delivery, you are firing on cylinders, now go put this one on the top shelf and have another helping of eskimo bear pie.

Could that other brother be Nyjer t-plush Morgan who was also born in san francisco? and actually played pro hockey or just major junior hockey with the Regina Pats, but still, enough guts learned to get way under major league skin and now he’s raising up roofs in Japan’s Central League. A lot of fun this poem! Cheers!

I read this over again the other day, W.K., and I really like this. I’ll bet that I’m one of the few that read it that actually understands the context of it— the shout of “He’s better than his brother Joe—- Dom, Dom, DiMaggio!” at Fenway Park, satirizing the DiMaggio record that was so big during that time.

I was so excited that you wrote about my father’s favorite baseball player (well, a SATIRE of him, at least) that I didn’t really read it carefully enough back in early December. Now that I did, I see that it’s extremely humorous.

The ironic thing is that I think that Dom DiMaggio’s SUCCESSOR in center field at Fenway would be more likely to jump onto a streetcar with his skates on and do all those other non-conformist things. I’m a fan of both Dom AND Jimmy. I can relate to JIMMY better, though, I must confess. Boy, can I ever relate to Jimmy! (Piersall, of course.)